Unknown Magic Page 14

  Patrick spoke this time. “Megan, it is not just you that we have to be concerned with. These maniacs have been hunting and capturing our people for some time now. If they get hold of you and are somehow able to figure out how to get control of your power, it could be disastrous for all of us. They have such advanced technology that they may have found some way of doing just that.”

  “You have more power than I have ever seen in one so young. Your Mum was quite powerful, but you are showing signs of surpassing even her powers. I do not care if every one of us is hurt or killed, but we must prevent this group from getting to you at any cost. Now before we go any further with this discussion we need to get to the cave.”

  When they entered the cave, much to Megan’s amazement, it looked more like a home than a cave. There were sofas, tables, desks, and areas that were curtained off, which she assumed contained beds. “My God, this looks more like a model home than a cave stuck in the side of a mountain.”

  Roarke answered her. “I must apologize for not giving you more comfort when we were here earlier, but I was so distracted by all that was happening, that my mind was more on that than comfort.”

  Once everyone was in, Seamus placed wards on the cave to make sure no one would be able to enter or find any entrance to the cave if they got anywhere close.

  Seamus turned to Colin. “Well, you have supplied yourself with quite an array of equipment.”

  Without taking his eyes off the monitors, he answered, “I have at that. I have placed cameras all over this mountain so I can see anyone trying to get up here. If they have toys to stop me from sensing them, I will make damn sure I can see them.”

  “Grand. Now, Col, what do you have on these guys?’

  “They are having some trouble getting past the spell you placed on the mountain but it has not deterred them much. They know we are up here and are determined to get to us.”

  Seamus rubbed the back of his neck. “Has Conor come up with anything on these blasted tracking devices or on how to get them out of us?”

  “He is working on it as quickly as possible, but he ran into a bit of a snag. It seems if you try to take them out they inject some kind of fast acting poison into the blood stream and he is sure it will even affect us. Therefore, he is not too willing to try to take any of them out just yet. He is almost finished with an antidote on the ill effects of the drugs they are pumping us with so at least we will be able to ward off the effects of that a bit more quickly.”

  “All right then, it is going to be dark here in less than twenty minutes. I think we should all eat and then get some rest. We should have a few of us take turns manning the monitors and the rest need to get some sleep.”

  Nodding, Colin replied, “Fine. Kevin and I can take the first watch. Paddy and Sean, you and Brian will take third shift, and then Donovan and Da can take it after that. Hopefully by morning, Conor will have some good news for us, and we can get these bastards out of our hair once and for all.”

  “Agreed. I want the four of us with the microchips to sleep in the inner cave. That way we can sleep without wearing the scramblers or worrying they will fall off.”

  Seamus found Megan in the small cavern with her father and Donovan. He was not sure who was trying to console whom. He cleared his throat and they all looked up. “Sorry to disturb you, I just finished talking to Colin and we figure this is not going to be as easy as the last time. Since they have not breached the spell perimeter, I think it would be best if we rested and see what they come up with next. We have had a long hard day of it already.”

  Jim got up, came over to Seamus, and asked if he could speak to him in private.

  “Aye, we can take a walk and see what is beyond the large cavern.”

  “Thank you.”

  Had Jim guessed what he and Megan had been up to a short while before?

  Once away from the group Jim turned to Seamus. When Jim thrust out his right hand, Seamus started to take a step back before he realized Jim intended to shake his hand. Seamus extended his own.

  “I’m in your debt for keeping us all safe. I’m ashamed of my behavior when you first showed up. If it had not been for you…well, Megan might be a captive again.”

  Running his fingers through his hair, Jim continued. “I feel very guilty about not listening to Donovan all those years ago and keeping Megan in the dark about her heritage and her mother. I’m sure you think it was very stupid and selfish of me, but I honestly thought that it might do more damage to her knowing the truth at first. Then the time never seemed to be right. Maybe, in a sense, you showing up and getting it out in the open was the best thing that could have happened.”

  Seamus realized he had great admiration for Jim and the way he was handling this awful situation.

  “I have to admit, at first I thought you were a damn fool for not telling her earlier. However, I cannot know how I would have reacted in your place. You have done a fine job of raising your daughter and no one, including me, has any right to judge you or your reasoning for the way you did it.”

  “Seamus, I have always been so afraid of losing her again and now I am absolutely petrified. Not just with this Golden Enterprise group, but also with her changing.”

  Jim looked as if he was going to cry.

  “There is nothing for you to worry about when it comes to losing her once she comes into power, Jim. You are her father and she loves you very much. I do not think anything could change that. All fathers worry about their little girls growing up and you are no different.”

  “I knew that someday she would grow up and leave to get married, but it just seems that I lost so much of her life when she was in the coma. I guess I was just trying to prolong the inevitable.”

  “Jim, you need to stop feeling guilty for what you cannot change. The best advice I can give you is just keep loving her the way you do and things will be fine. We are all going to do everything we can to keep her safe for you.”

  Jim ran his fingers through his hair. “You don’t know how much just talking to you has helped. Let me say thanks again for everything.”

  “You are welcome, but there is one more thing I need to discuss with you, since I have you alone.”

  “Does this have to do with what Donovan said about you and Megan being mates?”

  “Aye, and I hope this is not going to become another problem.”

  Jim let out a sigh. “I wish that you could wait on doing anything about that, but I understand that it’s impossible.”

  “Jim, if there was any way to wait until this whole mess was over and give Megan more time to get used to everything else that she needs to come to terms with, I would. This situation we are facing now is so precarious, that personally, I feel it would be safer for her if we actually rushed things along more than even I would like.”

  Jim again thrust his fingers through his hair. “Why? Wouldn’t it be better to wait until she gets used to the power? My God man, she’s not even twenty-five.”

  Seamus cut him off. “Jim. Listen to me. I do not like doing this to her anymore than you want me to, but she has no telepathic ability, so she cannot communicate with any of our kind. If anything should happen and these bastards get her, at least if we have completed the Deasghnáth I will have the ability to find her no matter if she is drugged or not.”

  At that, Jim became paler and leaned against the wall. He opened his mouth and closed it again. Finally, he looked into Seamus’s eyes. “Do...do you mean to tell me if Bernadette had been mated to one of your kind instead of me, that person could have found her and she might not have died?”

  Guilt flooded Seamus as he realized that Jim did not realize what might have been able to save Bernadette. “Goddess, Jim, I’m sorry. I did not mean to make you feel guilt over Bern’s death. Bern married you because she loved you, and you have nothing to feel guilty about. In fact, I do not think anyone would have thought of that.”

  Then it hit him. “Dammit to hell and back. Those bastards had to have known B
ern mated a non-Tuatha before they took her, or yes, a Tuatha mate could have tracked her down. Who the hell is giving these people all this information about us?

  Let us get back to the main cave. I need to discuss this with everyone else and I am also, with or without your consent, going to talk to Megan and get the Deasghnáth preformed as soon as it can be arranged.”

  “Seamus, if this ritual can keep Megan safe, you have my blessing, and I agree, get it done NOW.”

  They turned around and raced back to the main cave.

  When they arrived, everyone was sitting at a large table, preparing to eat. They joined them and Seamus stated, “We most definitely have someone telling this person who runs Golden Enterprises about our people.”

  Kevin looked up from his meal, “Can you be so sure he has not just gotten lucky in his earlier endeavors and has figured it out from there?”

  Seamus and Jim both said together, “No!”

  Seamus continued, “They had to have known Bern was mated to a non-Tuatha, or her mate would have tracked her down.”

  At the collective gasp from around the table, Seamus knew that no one else had thought of that fact either. “So you see, there has to be someone that knows enough about our people to have known that Jim could not track her.”

  Megan looked confused. “What do you mean? How could dad not being a Tuatha Dé Danann make any difference?”

  Donovan explained. “It is very simple, Little Bit. Once our people have preformed the Deasghnáth, we know where our mate is at all times. Nothing would have been able to prevent one of us from finding your mother if she had been mated to one of our kind.”

  Donovan then looked toward Jim, who had his head down and said, “Jim, do not do this to yourself. No one is blaming you for what happened to Bern. She chose you as her mate and loved you dearly. She would not want you to try to take any of the blame for this. The only ones that we can put fault on are the bastards at this Golden Enterprises and now the person who is feeding them information. I can guarantee you, when we find them their deaths will not come easily.”

  When Jim brought his head up there was such fierceness in his eyes that Megan gasped.

  “When you find them, I want to be there to exact my revenge for what they did to my family.”

  Donovan nodded. “If it is possible, I will make sure you are there.”

  They continued talking as they finished eating and then went to get some rest before morning.

  Once they arrived in the cavern, Megan came up to Seamus and hugged him. “This is all so overwhelming. I don’t know how to help Dad. He is blaming himself for all that happened to Mom and me back then. It’s not his fault that he doesn’t have the abilities the rest of you have.”

  “Megan, none of us blames him. Unfortunately, we all have a tendency to hold ourselves responsible even when we did everything we could.”

  Megan looked at him. She knows I blame myself for not doing more.

  “You did everything you could have done as well.”

  Smashing his fist on the table, he asked, “Did I? If I had figured out they had been drugging our food sooner, maybe I could have gotten my strength back quicker. Maybe I could have saved your mum as well.”

  Hugging him tighter, she said, “I wish that had happened, but who’s to say, if you had, maybe it would have worked out different and maybe it wouldn’t. You don’t know that for sure; none of us do.”

  Seamus pulled her even closer to him and smiled. “You know, for someone so young you sure are smart.”

  She beamed up at him, “Thanks.”

  He sobered and said. “Now, there is something we need to discuss. Come, we need to go for a little walk.”

  They headed down the same tunnel he and her father had ventured into earlier. He knew it was going to be much harder to convince Megan that the Deasghnáth must be preformed now. He had promised her he would take things slowly, and now he was going to have to explain that it was not possible to wait. He wished there was some other way to keep her safe, and give her time to get used to her power. But for the life of him, he could not figure one. He could feel Megan’s anxiety growing the further they walked. Moreover, he truly was not looking forward to her reaction when he told her. Once he felt they were far enough from the rest of the family he stopped.

  He produced a big stuffed chair and he was sitting in it with Megan on his lap before she could object.

  “Love, I know I promised to give you time to get used to being Tuatha before we did anything about the fact of us being mated, but we have run into a problem. These men seem so hell-bent on kidnapping you that it has all of us very concerned. If by some unforeseen happening they succeed, I want to be able to track you down.”

  She pushed up and away from him and started pacing the floor. She reminded him of a caged animal striding back and forth. “Seamus, I’m not sure I can do that yet. I need time to get to know you better. I know that I’m ready to take you as a lover. It’s not fair that you’re asking me to go farther than that right now. I know you’re worried about these guys getting hold of me, but with so many of you around I can’t see that happening and I don’t want to be rushed into this. You promised me you would give me time.”

  He knew his next words would cause her pain, and it was unfair of him, but he also knew if he did not use every advantage, he would not get her to agree. In addition, he knew that there was no way he was going to allow her any other choice. He was not about to lose her, not after he just found her. She may not understand that once The Fates decreed them mates, she would be his mate for life and if he lost her, he would live the rest of his life alone, something he was not willing to do. He would follow her to the next world as many mated Tuatha Dé Danann chose to do upon the death of their partners. Once the Deasghnáth was complete, he would be able to find her again even if she died and was reborn.

  “I know, and I am sorry that I am going against my word, but I just do not want your family to go through what they did when your mum and you were kidnapped the first time. Not to mention I would go out of my mind, so I am going to ask you to allow us to go through the Deasghnáth now.”

  He could see her struggling with it. She wanted to say no, but she also would not want to hurt her family. Thinking the best way to handle it now would be to let her mull it over for a few hours, he got up and crossed to her. “Megan, do me a favor and just think on it for a little while. If you want, go and talk to Sean or Donovan, maybe they can help you better decide.”

  She looked at him then. “I know I sound like a whiner. I’m sorry, but I just don’t think I’m ready for all this right now.”

  “Love, I am sorry to be dumping this on you now. I think you have every right to whine a bit. I, for one, think you are doing a remarkable job of keeping it together with everything you have had to deal with. If there was any way…any way at all, I could change it for you, I would. We should head back and get some rest. Talk to your Da, Sean or whomever, but please think good and hard about what I said. I have lived a long time, and now that I found you I do not want to lose you.”

  He pulled her to him and held her close. He could hope that she would make the decision to agree to the Deasghnáth, but either way it was going to happen. He knew if he forced her, she might hate him for a very long time. Nevertheless, he also knew he had no choice if he were to keep her safe.

  They headed back to the main cavern not saying anything more about the Deasghnáth.

  Megan went over to find Sean and get his input on what he thought she should do. The whole thing felt like some kind of old-fashioned arranged marriage, and she resented it. Granted she did like being around Seamus, and he treated her like she was the greatest and only person in the world, but that did not mean that as soon as they were mated things would not change. She had seen too many of her friends go through lousy marriages because they did not take enough time to get to know their spouses. She did not want to have that happen to her. Especially since once she and Seamus perform
ed this ceremony, there was no way to reverse it. She did not want to be stuck in a marriage that was awful, considering how long the Tuatha lived. That could mean a miserable couple of centuries, or longer, with no way out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Once back in the main cavern, Seamus approached Colin to check on his progress. “Has anything changed?”

  “No, they still have not been able to breach the spell, but they have not left either. Noel and Brian want to go down and see if they can find out what they are up to.”

  Shaking his head, Seamus said, “I do not think it would be safe. You know they can detect us with their equipment.”

  “We have thought of that and Noel thinks he might be able to knock some of it out from a distance and then they can get a bit closer.”

  “I do not want anyone else getting captured or incapacitated by these bastards, but I do agree we need to find out what they are up to.”

  “Aye, and they are the best ones to handle it. Da, also, wants to talk to you.”

  “Thank you. I will go see what he needs and then get some rest. When they are ready to go, let me know and I will unward the cave and you can ward it after they leave.” Seamus said as he stifled a yawn. Then went to find his father

  “Da, you needed to speak to me?”

  “Aye, I have spoken with your mother and she has gotten in touch with the other clans. They will be assembling in about two hours and I am going to leave to speak to them. I hope that we can come up with some sort of plan on dealing with this group. We will also try to put together a way to ferret out this traitor of our people. I should be back by morning.”

  “We will see you then. Give my love to Mum. Tell her I will see her as soon as we get this mess straightened out, and that I will be bringing my mate.”

  Seamus watched as a smile brightened his father’s face. “That will please her greatly. She has been chafing at the bit to come here to see you. She always swore you were still alive, even when the rest of us had given up hope.” Roarke stood then, his eyes shimmering with unleashed tears, pulled his son into a fierce hug and whispered, “I’m sorry I gave up on you son.”